The Burn of a Cold White Flame
by Esther-Channah
Summary: Twenty-five years after Silver On the Tree, Will Stanton encounters the Drew siblings again.


A/N: Thanks to Kathy and Uniasus for the beta!

A/N: John Rowland's quote is found in _The Grey King_ (Aladdin Paperback edition, 1975), pages 114-115.

**The Burn of a Cold White Flame**

Will Stanton seldom read the lifestyle section of the _Examiner_. These days, his interests ran more toward world events. Had his sister Barbara not been one to leave the papers strewn all over her coffee table, displaying its headlines to all and sundry, Will would never have seen the featured article. She was living in Aylesbury now, barely five minute's walk from Will's job at the County Museum. Due to that proximity, Will had become a frequent dinner guest at her house, and he felt closer to her two sons than to his other nieces and nephews.

For now, he had little reason to think of the affairs of the Old Ones. The Dark, he knew, would rise again one day, but that day was still ages in the future. Besides, it was hard to think of Old Ones when his siblings kept bringing _young ones_ into the world.

He was about to clear the papers off the table to make room for Stan and Geoffrey's jigsaw puzzle, when a story headline caught his eye. 'London siblings' initiative: the stuff of legend.' Stunned, Will picked up the paper, oblivious to his nephews' curiosity.

_Nearly twenty-five years ago, Simon, Jane and Barney Drew chanced upon an amazing discovery while on holiday in Cornwall. The Trewissick Grail, believed to have been hidden for over fourteen centuries, was found in..._

He skipped that. He didn't need to read about the Grail-it had served its purpose years ago. But then, a cynical part of him queried, couldn't the same be said of the Drews? _Three from the Circle; three from the track._ Their paths had crossed for a brief interlude, before the Drew children had continued along that track, while Will, the Circle, and all it entailed, had rolled out of their lives and out of their memories. Merriman had seen to that.

He felt a pang. He was the last of the Old Ones-and the youngest-which often seemed to mean that he was more in tune with the ways of mortals than the others of his kind. The others affected to be—perhaps, at times, they truly were. But then, in a split second, they could casually, callously require a liegeman to risk his life for a cause that he barely understood. Or they could wipe away four sets of memories as easily as they could wipe a window pane.

More and more, Will was coming to believe that John Rowlands had been right, all those years ago.

_"Those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." _Will could still hear his voice as plainly as though the Welshman were standing before him now._ "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else. You are like fanatics. Your masters, at any rate. Like the old Crusaders - oh, like certain groups in every belief... At the centre of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe."  
_

Will hadn't wanted to believe what John had tried to tell him then. It had been-and was-so much more comforting to take refuge in a child's idea of pure good and pure evil. Merriman had once told him that Light and Dark might each wax and wane in its turn, but that neither could truly triumph because there was a mix of both in the heart of each man, woman, and child. He had neglected to mention, however, that there was a seed of darkness even at the heart of the Light. Will supposed that it had to mean that there was also a seed of light at the heart of the Dark, although he couldn't say whether his belief was accurate, or whether it stemmed from a sense of fairness, an assumption that opposing forces had to be evenly matched. (And yet, if Light and Dark were truly in balance, then both sides would likely have walked away from the conflict eons ago-or still be locked in a stalemate today.)

"Uncle Will? Uncle Will!"

Will came out of his musings and back to the present-where his nephews hovered anxiously nearby.

"Are you alright, Uncle?"

Barbara emerged from the kitchen in protective big-sister mode. "Will?"

And Will smiled self-consciously, embarrassed at the attention. "I'm fine. I just..." He held the newspaper up to his sister. "I've just realized I've met these people. D'you recall when our uncle Bill came to visit from America and I spent the summer in Cornwall with him and his wife?"

Barbara nodded. "Right. You did say you'd fallen in with some other visitors who'd showed you around." She smiled. "You don't mean to say it was those three?"

Will grinned. "Guess they're the first celebs I can truly say I knew 'when'."

"Aces!" Stan exclaimed. "Are you going down to see them, then?"

"It's not a bad idea," Barbara chimed in. "London's only an hour or so away by rail."

"I don't think so," Will demurred. His chuckle sounded forced. "That was twenty-five years ago. I doubt they'll even remember me."

"You won't know until you try," Barbara said. "Look, why don't you take the boys down with you on Saturday?" She handed the paper to Geoff. "Look at the detail. It almost looks like the horse is going to come charging clear off the page, doesn't it?"

Geoff's eyes lit up. "Stan... the paintings! They're all about King Arthur! Uncle Will, you've _got_ to take us!"

"But I..."

Barbara grinned. "I really think you do, Will. After all, you're the one who got them hooked on Arthur and the Round Table in the first place." She reached over to ruffle his hair. "What time will you call by on Saturday, then?"

"Before noon," Will mumbled, defeated.

* * *

His hair was darker. That was the first thing Will registered as Barney Drew walked up to them. When he'd known him, Barnabas Drew had had hair so blond that it had been nearly white, but now it was several shades past golden brown.

"That was painted at Kemare Head," he said of the picture that Will and his nephews were admiring.

"The Battle of Tristan and Marhaus," Geoff read. "Wasn't it originally Morholt?"

Barney's eyebrows lifted. "Very good," he said with a boyish grin. In a serious tone, he continued, "You need to remember that there are many different versions of the Arthurian legends, passed down from storyteller to storyteller and bard to bard. The names of the heroes can change with the telling, depending for example, on whether the teller is Irish, Welsh, English, or French. I try to remember all the versions."

"Where's... Kemare Head?" Stan asked.

"Up in Cornwall, near St Austell," Will broke in.

Barney beamed. "Exactly right, Mister..."

"Stanton," Will said. "Will Stanton."

"Barnabas Drew." His smile was open and friendly, but without a trace of recognition. "My friends call me Barney."

"I'm Will." He introduced Stan and Geoff.

"Been up to St Austell, then, have you?"

"About twenty-five years ago." He pretended to reflect for a moment. "I saw that piece in the _Examiner_, where they mentioned that Grail-"

"Everyone always mentions that Grail," A man of about Will's age trotted up to them. "If you want irony, we can barely remember uncovering it now." He shook his head. "You'd think I'd recall my first find with a bit more clarity." He thrust out a hand. "Simon Drew, historical archeologist."

"Currently looking for kernels of truth in the mythology of the British Isles," Barney grinned. "Will, Stan, Geoff... my brother Sy."

Will shook his hand heartily. "I was just telling your brother, I believe the last time I was in Cornwall was when the Grail was stolen from the British Museum."

"Oh?" Simon said with faint interest. "We were there, too. Like as not, our paths may have crossed then."

"They d—" Stan started to agree.

"Like as not," Will cut him off, nodding agreement and ignoring his nephews' frowns of confusion.

"Say," Simon added, "if you're at all interested, our sister Jane will be giving a demonstration of traditional Celtic handicrafts in about fifteen minutes. Fascinating if you're into that sort of thing. She gives classes during the year, too."

Will glanced at his nephews, who were eying the rest of Barney's pictures hungrily. "I think," he said, "we'll poke about here for a bit longer."

"You know," Barney said slowly, "I do believe I must have seen you at some time-perhaps when you were in Cornwall. Because..." He took hold of Will's sleeve. "Come here. I want to show you something."

He took Will behind a partition into a makeshift office. "You see?" He asked, gently rifling through a pile of framed canvases that leaned against the far wall. He set one down on the desk.

"I..." Will found himself at a loss for words. The canvas depicted a king seated in a tournament booth. At his right was a regal woman, clearly his queen. At his left, however, stood an old man accompanied by a young boy. The boy, clearly some sort of apprentice, carried several heavy tomes. He looked very much as Will had at the age of twelve. The old man was Merriman.

"It's funny," Barney said. "If you look at my other canvasses, I try to paint Arthur as a Roman, a Celt, a medieval monarch-all the usual versions. And, depending on the period, his appearance can vary a great deal. But my Merlin never changes. And he _always_ has an apprentice. And he _always _looks a good deal like..."

Will let out a low whistle. "How much for this one, then?"

It wouldn't be difficult for him to undo what Merriman had done. There were cracks already in the working. Will knew that it wouldn't take much to widen them. Just his being around the Drews was likely to reawaken more of their memories. But Merriman had had his reasons for causing them to forget. For their safety, and for his own peace of mind, Will knew that he would not seek them out again.

But he was going to hang the painting in his study.


End file.
